Arabic Poems

Arabic Poems Synopsis

The Arabic poetic legacy is as vast as it is deep, spanning a period of fifteen centuries in regions from Morocco to Iraq. As a unifying principle, editor Marlé Hammond has selected eighty poems reflecting desire and longing of various kinds: for the beloved, for the divine, for the homeland, and for change and renewal. Poets include the legendary pre-Islamic warrior 'Antara Ibn Shaddad, medieval Andalusian poet Ibn Zaydun, the wandering poet Al-A'sha, and the influential Egyptian Romantic Ahmad Zaki Abu Shadi.

Here too are literary giants of the past century:

• Khalil Jibran, author of the bestselling The Prophet
• popular Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani
• Palestinian feminist Fadwa Tuqan
• Mahmoud Darwish, bard of occupation and exile
• acclaimed iconoclast Adonis, and more. In their evocations of heroism, nostalgia, mysticism, grief, and passion, the poems gathered here transcend the limitations of time and place